Author Interview: Kathy MacMillan
How did you become a writer?
I’ve been writing stories since I was young, but it was really writing fanfiction in the early 2000s that taught me how to write novels. Fanfiction is great training because it’s fun, and you get to play in someone else’s story world while you are figuring out the craft. Then you take off the training wheels and build your own worlds! Now I write middle grade and young adult novels, as well as picture books and board books, and nonfiction for all ages.
What inspires you to write?
Anything and everything! You never know where inspiration will strike. My YA novel Sword and Verse was inspired when I was researching ancient libraries for another project and found a reference to libraries of letters. In the margin of my notes, I wrote, “What if they were letters to the gods?” My picture book The Runaway Shirt was inspired by a game my kiddo and I used to play while doing laundry. Some other random sources of inspiration: a trip to IKEA, a visit to the Catoctin Iron Furnace, a fairy garden at the local arboretum, a comment overheard at a meeting, and the way my cat’s nose twitches at the open window. Ideas are the easy part; the hard part is finding the time to flesh them all out!
How do you develop your plot and characters?
I usually start with the characters. Often, before I know all the details about the world or even who my protagonist is, I have a strong feel for what kind of emotional journey that character will go on. When I first started writing novels, I did a lot of freewriting to figure out the story, and that meant a lot of revision to scale it back and tame it into a coherent narrative. Now I have learned to balance outlining with freewriting to make sure both the plot and the character development are serving the overall story.
What are your current/future projects?
My current project, Signs of Magic, is a middle grade fantasy novel about an eleven-year-old Deaf girl who learns the secret, magical sign language of the fairies and helps them fight an enchanted, monstrous yellowjacket. I am also working on a young adult retelling of Cinderella that is all about disinformation, gaslighting, and the beauty myth.
If you could go back in time and give yourself advice, what would it be?
I have this framed over my desk: “It takes the time that it takes.” Nothing worth doing can be done quickly or easily. Being very Type A, it’s hard for me to accept when things don’t come together as quickly as I think they should. It’s a lesson I learn again with every single book.
Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?
You are the only one who knows what the world is missing without your work, so you have to love it and believe in it enough to keep going and create it. Other people can think your idea is cool or encourage you to keep going, but you’re the only one who can truly see it and make it happen. You have to believe in it so much that you inspire other people to believe in it too!
What is your preferred method for readers to get in touch with you?
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